Tank up 2 months, have about 30# LR in there now. "pre-cured" and cured during cycle, i.e. not at all.
I'm thinking I'd like to add more rock, so we'll rehash the same old questions (and yes, I've read the sticky posts and
Live Rock - Curing Guidelines - Marine and Saltwater Aquarium )
1) Base rock- LFS sells "base rock" that looks rather like petrified wood or (for a higher price) chunks of concrete. Not so exciting. Ideas on "base" rock? I like the idea of slate/shale type of stuff so i can make a shelf or two, but don't want to screw with my stable 8.2 pH etc (like the "tufa seemed to).
2) More Live rock- All my LR came from LFS, and honestly I'm not too impressed. I have some lovely green and cyano
, and hopefully that slightly darker purple I can't scrape off is coralline. At $5/lb I don't want buy from the same place unless I come across one REALLY nice piece.
3) And of course, curing. We have many schools of thought here:
- Reef_Guru likes to nuke it in bleach. Why pay for LR? Does coralline survive bleach?
- JohnO drops it right in. Ok, that's easy enough, but I've already had the aiptasia issue once (love my peppermint shrimp).
- The "rules" say to let it sit in a separate tank for two weeks in salt water. What's the point of that? This stuff has been sitting in the LFS's sump since forever.
- And then there's what I did- scrub with a tooth brush under cold fresh water (bathtub) and toss in tank.
Bottom line, I would like to add more rock and don't want to screw up the baby tank any more than I already have!